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Hey, Alex here. Before we get into today's episode, I want to share some really exciting news with you. We just launched a podcast network. If you go to podmatch.comnetwork, you can take a look at all the shows and categories that are involved. And if you'd like to have your show listed in the network, you can press the Join Network button at the top. I look forward to seeing your application, and I hope you enjoy some of the shows there. And now, let's get into today's episode. You're listening to Podcasting Made Simple. Let me know if you've ever heard one of these things before. Man, I am so passionate about this, man. My passion is just driving me to do this. I am so passionate to get more into the podcasting space. I'm a passionate podcast host. I'm a passionate podcast guest. I'm a passionate advocate of. I'm passionate. We've all probably heard people say this, right? But many of those same people that we've heard say these exact words are also the ones that seem to disappear a couple weeks later. And you're like, wait a minute, what? What happened? Right? Like, how'd you go from I'm passionate to I'm quitting, I'm done, I'm stopping. Hello, my name's Alex Sanfilippo, and if I've not met you before, I'm so excited to spend this time with you today. And I want to take a few minutes to talk about passion and the role that it plays for podcast hosts and podcast guests and their overall success and how to really understand it. Well, because I think it's something that's misunderstood. The comments I mentioned at the start here. I'm very passionate about this. I think that many of us are misusing the word passion. And I actually wrote down the original word, the Latin translation of it. Passion means forgive me if I say this wrong, but pascio is the way that I believe you say it, which literally translates to the word suffer or to endure. If anyone's ever heard of the movie the Passion of the Christ, the word passion is pulled directly from this. It's the suffering of the Christ. And listen, whether you're a follower of Jesus or not, like, that's what I've based my entire life on. You can still say that that came at a hefty price, right? Regardless of your beliefs, you're like, okay, that passion was real suffering, right? And so for me, whenever I think about that word, I think, ok, to suffer, to endure. And someone's saying, I'm passionate about this. And a few weeks later, they're quitting. Well, where's the disconnect? And first and foremost, it's that we're misusing the word passion. We don't actually understand what it means. Instead, people should be saying, I'm excited about this. I'm interested in this. This is a hobby of mine, right? Not, I'm passionate about it. Because if you're passionate about it, you're gonna be willing to go a lot further. And the reason that people stop is cause friction shows up, right? Again, the translation, meaning to endure friction is involved. And here's a great example. I am passionate. Become the best podcaster I can. I'm like, okay, I upgrade from your free hosting provider to a paid one. They're like, I'm not that passionate. It's like, okay, well, you're not willing to suffer then, right? Podcast guests that are like, oh, I got to get on the biggest shows. I'm like, well, first you need to get on maybe some smaller ones and maybe even just focus on the niche ones is better. And they're like, ah, my ego won't allow that. I can't do it. I'm just not going to do this at all. It's like, okay, well, then you're not actually passionate. You're just interested. You're kind of considering something, right? And I'm going to tell you now that I think we actually have to, one, get the right definition of passion. But two, we have to actually become passionate if we are going to make it in something. Here's something that's been true for all of eternity since the world began. People follow people that are passionate. People follow people that are passionate. And it's not because they're the most excited or maybe the most outgoing or the most enthusiastic about it, right? Like, that stuff helps because it kind of can be a byproduct of passion. But we're looking at people that saying, I am willing to put everything on the line for this thing because I am passionate about it. I am willing to suffer. I'm willing to endure. The rest of us, myself included, we look at that as strength. We look at that as a North Star. We look at that as a cornerstone, saying, I want that. I don't have that for myself, right? I quit everything I do, which is the majority of us. I don't say that. I know I laugh a little bit, but I don't mean that in a negative or bad way. It's just we haven't found our real passion yet. And because of that, so many of us would grab on and gravitate towards other people that actually have figured out the thing that makes them passionate. So, first and foremost, I want to tell you, become passionate about what you do. And that means being willing to suffer. It means being willing to endure. It means being willing to pull out your credit card when you aren't sure if you can afford something. It means being willing to stay up late when you don't feel like it. It means being willing to turn off your TV for a little bit, right. And to shut off social media so you can focus on something. If friction shows up and you say I'm passionate, but you're not willing to overcome the friction and work through it, you're not actually passionate. And I really believe that in today's creator economy, the people that are going to win are the ones that are actually passionate. What they do. They the ones that are willing to suffer. And I know I'm repeating myself a lot here, but this is such an important point for us to get now. Passion alone, I don't believe is enough. There has to be a connection to purpose as well. So passion left just on its own can actually be extremely dangerous. And I'm going to be really transparent and share my own story about this. In podcasting, this is what happened to me. I'll never forget it. I was actually in Las Vegas at a podcasting conference, and I just kept on hearing people in the industry, it was like an industry conference, and they were saying things that were not going to help podcasters. It was to help them, like, from stages. They're like, this is how we make more money off of people. This is how we kind of trick them into doing this so that we can make more money, so we can be more profitable. This how you have a smaller team, so you don't have to help people as much, but you can make more profit. Like, and none of them meant it in a bad way. Like, it sounds terrible, like, me saying this, right? I became furious at that event and I actually told somebody, I told them, my goal is to put you out of business because you're not a good person. And, like, listen, that might have been true, but, like, what a rude thing to say. I told another guy, a group of people, that same thing. One of the guy goes, you know what? Alex is a savage. They're like, he could actually do this. And, like, we need to be careful what we say around him. Like, said that in front of everybody. And I was like, yeah, you do. Because you all are bad people. Like, you don't care about the creator economy. You can even hear me now. I'm passionate about this, right? My passion left alone, fueled into anger. I got mad about it, right? I was willing to suffer. I was willing to, like, break and burn bridges, right? Like, with these individuals that were not having other people's best interest in mind. So my purpose was even tied to this, right? So, like, there's my passion. My purpose was to help independent voices get heard and elevated, to give back, to help the individuals that are actually making the industry work instead of focusing on the top 1000 and working with them. So I could pat myself on the back saying, I work with famous people, which is what the rest of this room was doing, saying, here's much money make. Here's the famous people I work with. Everyone else is garbage, right? And that is the mentality of most industries. So I'm not talking about bad about the podcasting industry, although it's just not any different than the rest of them came from aerospace. Same thing, right? Like, that's just the way it works. Most people are very greedy, and they have their own reasons for doing things. Now, I'm sharing this story because for me, I was passionate but was left uncontrolled. Therefore, I started saying things I shouldn't have said. I started actually doing things that, although I have people's best interests in mind, it might actually help creators more. I was actually hurting other people and other companies. And, like, I will openly admit, and it's terrible. Like, I have put big companies out of business in this industry for doing the wrong thing just by kind of doing what they do, but in a way that cares for people, right? And maybe that's good, maybe that's bad. I'm sharing that transparently here today because I don't think that that was the right move for me to make. So, yes, I had my passion. I had my purpose behind it as well, but I had no constraints for how to handle that in a way that actually serves people well. And when I say serves people well, yes, I was serving my ideal person. But, like, I was really, again, burning bridges and actually causing people to lose their jobs because I thought there was a better way to do it. And there might have been, right? So what I want to talk about this is, first and foremost, if you're like, okay, I'm gonna really fuel my passion, the first thing you have to do is connect it to that purpose, right? And Jay Cron, who's a great mentor in my life and somebody who I've had on the show previously, he talked about two things. How you can have an internal external purpose. What's your internal one? What's it mean for you? For Alex? Right. In my case. And what does that mean for other people? The more connected those two things are though, the better. So for me, if you go to podmatch.com about that is my purpose and that is Pod Match's purposes, they are one and the same. My core values even overlap a little bit. Like personally to the company as well. Right. So you want to think about, okay, what is my purpose? And you want to get so fiery about that purpose, so excited about it that it fuels into passion and goes beyond just the idea of a hobby or an interest or something that you're eh, one foot in, one foot out about. Right? Cause I think that when you get this right, it fuels it in a huge way. Now beyond that, you gotta have some accountability in your life. You gotta have some community in your life. Alex was running crazy in Las Vegas. Not gambling, but basically telling her, when I'm putting you all out of business cause you're bad people. Right? That was kind of my motive there because I saw something I didn't like. I saw people not wanting to serve people, they wanted to serve themselves and they were leveraging others to do it. I didn't like that. Right. But if I would have had people in my life that were my accountability be like, hey, hey buddy, slow down, Alex, chill. You said you're gonna do this in a really integrity driven way and you're gonna be kind to people on the way, right? Like you have to actually make that commitment to people. Getting into a like minded community of individuals will also help as well because instead of getting frustrated cause you feel like you're alone, that's typically where that's fueled from, right? Is because we feel alone. Now you can be with people saying, you know what, together we're doing this. I can't control what's happening out here, but we can bring as many people into this circle, this community that we have together and we can really make a difference here. And then of course again that accountability piece, they may be in your community, but they may also just be people outside of it. And for me, they're individuals that aren't even in podcasting, they're not in software and they're just people. I'm like, hey, this week I was really rude to somebody who thinks differently than I do. And sometimes I have to confess that and admit that now for all of you like, we're not all software founders. We're not all just devoted to working in podcasting and doing podcasting, right? But we are all podcast hosts and podcast guests. So what does this mean for us? First and foremost? Again, we gotta fuel that passion. But for us as individuals, it means, hey, I have a show that I'm really advocating for this, this one cause, right? You wanna find the community that's associated with that cause, get into it, ask them to hold you accountable to making sure that you're sharing from places of authenticity, love, passion, right? But also a way that doesn't make people feel like you're going to be rude or mean to them, right? And then have the accountability as well. Have the people in your corner that can actually listen to your podcast and be like, hey, listen, I'm not hearing the love that you said you want to share with. I'm not hearing the authenticity you want to share with. I'm hearing that you're kind of sugarcoating this a little bit. Like, you want the people that can share that in your life. And if you're the podcast guest, maybe it's your own company, maybe it's your own brand, maybe it's somebody that's a customer of yours that you can bring and say, hey, I'm going on podcasts. Can you listen to this? Can you give me feedback, right? Can you tell me where I can improve? Can you be my accountability? Can you be my community in this? We want to make sure we have these things really tightly knit, because when we do, it allows our passion to fuel in a really healthy way because it's not off the rails, right? Like, we have our purpose that it ties to. We got the passion, and then we've got the community and the accountability. Like, these things together make for a really, really great execution of our passion. Now, I do think it's important that we make sure that we have balance, because passionate people are willing to endure, they're willing to suffer. But that doesn't work by itself. You know, I use Jesus as my early example. If I even go back to that example, there was plenty of times where Jesus wasn't working, right? Like, you look at the Bible, and there was times where he was just chilling, just hanging out with people, having a good time. And if we look at the data in podcasting on both sides of the microphone, the number one contributing factor to all success in podcasting is your self discipline, which, again, I think the passion's the best way to fuel that self discipline, right? We're willing to endure, willing to be just uncomfortable in it. But number two, and this is a close second, is our self care. Self care community helps with self care. Accountability helps with self care. What this means is I'm willing to be balanced. I'm not going to stay up all night, every night to work my podcast or to try to reach out to more hosts to get to pitch to be on their podcast. Like, I'm not going to do that. I'm have balance. I'm going to enjoy a TV show here and there. I'm going to enjoy going out with friends and family. I'm enjoying not working sometimes, or not even doing this creative endeavor that I seem to just really love. I'm gonna stop. So balance is so, so important when it comes to self care. The next thing is joy. You have to have joy. I mentioned that whole Vegas thing and like, I'm, I'm sending this out unedited. Like, I didn't script this. This is my first take. Hopefully, I'll tell you if it's not, but this is my first take as of right now on doing this. You could hear that I'm still a little bit angry about it, right? I wasn't full of joy. I was full of anger. I was full of, honestly, in some ways, a little bit of hate toward people that I thought were doing things that were wrong. But instead, fill yourself with joy. That's part of self care, right? The self discipline means I'm ready to fight. But the self care says, you know what, it's gonna be a joy to do this. I can't help everybody today. I can't change this thing overnight. But one person at a time, I can make a big difference, and that's gonna make me happy. I'm gonna smile knowing I made somebody's life or podcasting experience better today. And so for us as guests and hosts, we have to just know that, like, hey, I might not reach all the listeners. I might not have the biggest podcast in the world. I might not have a brand that goes completely viral. But you know what? If there's one person who listened and heard this today, this was worth it. I can have joy in that, knowing that, you know what, I help somebody, I serve them. There's a great mentor in my life, another one, Brendan Bruchard, and something that he writes, I think he has it on, maybe it's like on a wristband or something like that, at least reminds himself this. But he says, bring the joy is what he says. He says, bring the joy. And his reminders Bring the joy. Because energy comes from joy. And you know, a great way to fill your passion is be full of joy. And so, again, I want to remind everybody, like, we've got to have this idea of self care in mind. Joy is a huge one. And the last one that goes right along with that is fun. You gotta have fun. Like, that's in the work and out of the work. In the work. If you're like, I hate this part of what I do, right? I hate this part of podcasting. I hate this part of being a guest. Find a way to automate it. Find a way to delegate it, or find a way to eliminate it. Don't have it in what you're doing. Automate, delegate, eliminate. Get rid of it somehow, right? Get off your plate if it's just not fun. Now, again, you are gonna have to do things that are not. But if you're like, this is causing me to want to step back, maybe it's not great. And outside of this, have fun. Celebrate the little wins along the way. Celebrate with your community, with your accountability, with the people that are in your life saying, you know What? I reached 50 episodes of my podcast this month. Like, let's do something. It doesn't need to be with your podcast listeners. You can go out as a family, and that's why you're going out. Hey, I've got. I finally got on 10 podcasts as a guest or I had one that was really, really impactful. Feel good about, let's celebrate this win. Doing this takes care of you, right? So we have the self discipline, the self care. These two things go hand in hand, and we really, really have to get it right now. For me, I don't want to leave you all hanging that, like, Alex just turned out to be this bad guy who puts companies out of business and is mad at everybody at conferences. I have since then worked really hard to develop a really great relationship with people in podcasting, whether I agree with them or not. At the end of the day, what I realized, I have a bigger impact when I just love people for who they are, not for what they do. And so I go to these conferences, and I know some of their motives are not what I agree with. But instead of getting angry about it, I remember my accountability one, Someone's gonna beat me up, you know, if I don't treat people right. But also my community, they're counting on me to show up in a loving way. They're counting on Alex to show up in a way that loves and supports people not In a way that brings the fire, that brings people with, you know, axes and torches and stuff, and we're gonna go burn a place down. Like, we don't show up that way. And so I remember that. And so for me, I have really learned to rein in this passion that I have for what I do to serving others in the podcasting space on the other side of the microphone, I have brought that in to say, you know what? This is what I do. But I do it in a way that loves people. So even when there's individuals and companies I don't really agree with, I have a great reputation with them, and we have a great friendship with many of them. And at the end of the day, I think that actually rubs off a little bit more than me being angry, challenging, threatening, instead just showing them being like, you know what? I do stand my ground. Like, I don't really agree with that, but, like, I really respect the fact that you have conviction in the way that you should run your business. And I've built a really great reputation doing that. I'm not here to be like, oh, Alex, he's a hero, right? Anything like that. I'm just saying it goes so much further when we allow our passion to be fueled through love versus hate or anything like that. Right. I sound like a Jedi now. Like, which are you, a Jedi or a Sith? But when you really feel it that proper way, you can build a great reputation. The space that you're in, you can work with people that you thought you'd never work with. You can have a really big influence on their lives and maybe even cause them to course correct a little bit themselves and to find something that's more centered around love and service toward others. So listen, you're a podcast guest, you're a podcast host. I hope this really encourages you and challenges you. Step back, do some reflecting. Like, listen to this. Watch this again. Whatever you gotta do and think about it. Are you passionate? If you are, is it protected? Are you doing something to really make sure that it is benefiting you, your audience and your future, the legacy that you're going to leave. And I really encourage you, again, take some time, pen and paper, to really think about all this, because I believe that if we can become truly passionate, what we do in the right way, we can change the world. And again, they'll happen one listener at a time. Again, my name is Alex Sanfilippo, and I thank you so, so much for spending this time with me today. For more episodes, please visit podmatch.com episodes. Thank you so much for listening.